


The Hunter and the Wolf

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Romance, Smut, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-14 15:27:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14138943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: Hap's occasionally indulged vice of watching Prairie on the monitors escalates to a very bad, frequent habit which soon leaves him sleep-deprived and unsure of himself.  How can Prairie use this weakness on his part to her advantage?





	1. Living the life of someone else who wouldn’t even save himself

Every once in a while, just since Prairie’s arrival, Hap will skip the sleeping pills, lie down in bed at night and just wait. He brings his laptop with him. 

She usually goes to sleep as soon as the lights go out, which she only realizes because the other captives all sleep then. Prairie has acclimated well to their ways and rituals, despite the problems Hap might have occasioned her in that area with the special attention he paid her early on. Of course, that had to end after her escape attempt, and of course he’s missed her. So much so that watching her sleep has become a special treat, one he only allows himself on days when he has made real progress in his work — a sound from Scott’s NDE which Hap correctly identified today means he gets to indulge.

He’s excited, looking forward to watching her lovely pale lashes fluttering down over those gorgeous blue eyes, shutting out another day of stress and welcoming dreams which he hopes will be sweet and soothing. There’s nothing more he can do to alleviate her discomfort; she’s too essential an asset to release and too feisty to be trusted with the extra privileges which he’d love to bestow upon her. Hap knows that if he did, she’d try and attack him again and he might lose her this time. There it is, his greatest fear: losing Prairie. It used to be failing in his work, never finding the answers. Since he’s allowing himself an evening of unusual fancifulness, he can let himself feel it just for a little while, he reasons… _I love her so much._

She’s too exquisite, too good for this stomped-on, rotten core of a world. Hap wonders if she has a clue how she inspires him, or how much it hurts when he can’t be with her, when he has no opportunity to come up with an excuse to touch her and feel her irresistible reciprocation. He can’t comprehend Prairie’s emotional state because he’s never known anyone so fascinatingly complex — of course she despises him, fears him, all of those inevitable reactions that make him sick to his stomach. So why does she lean towards him when he wraps her in the blanket after drowning and reviving her? What makes her fingers rest willingly beneath his own instead of flinching away?

Hap is well aware of the danger in the tiny thrill of hope he takes away from such moments. He’s bewitched by Prairie, almost capable of forgetting himself, sinking into her presence like a warm bath and drowning happily…what a strange image for him to conjure, but he follows the thought path to its natural conclusion. How he’d kiss her fingers as she held him underwater, that is if she’d let him. The way her wet skin would taste right before he lost consciousness.

The worst part is that if he doesn’t stop thinking this way, he could lose sight of the work altogether. Start putting her first. God, what a tempting thought. He’s really letting himself get carried away tonight. Even though no one can see him, much less read his mind, Hap blushes for some absurd reason, palms slightly sweaty as he swipes his finger across the track pad to revive the screen and see what Prairie is doing.

It’s something new.

Well, how would he know, really? After all, he only lets himself look at her at night every few months or so. When he’s really earned it.

Hap looks with only mildly enhanced scrutiny at her fully awake but somehow hazy expression, then double-checks that the other prisoners are all asleep (they are). She looks almost guilty, embarrassed, but the combination of feelings in her face is so strikingly close to his own current mixture that Hap puts it together with surprising ease. _Guilty, embarrassed…excited._

Prairie’s hand is moving beneath the thin sheet that covers her body, the outline of her fingers sliding over her stomach, _down…_ Hap sits bolt upright and has to grab his glasses, adjusting them on his nose before they go flying. Her hand is moving down to stroke between her legs, and her thighs are widely parted…

“Holy shit,” Hap mumbles in a frantic state, slamming down the lid of the computer as his fingers fly to his lips, then tremble hard. He tries to get himself to walk away, but he can’t resist the urge to look again. When he does, it’s so much better than he might have imagined if he’d done the right thing and given her the privacy she so richly deserves. Prairie tilts her chin up, sighing as her fingers dip in deeper, rubbing inside…he can see the slowly mounting rhythm as she keeps going, making him despise that damned sheet. 

By now, he knows his face is beet red. Still, he adjusts the volume in his headphones, listening to her secret soft moans, the kind she can’t fully repress. But no one else stirs; this is just between Prairie and Hap. His heartbeat is an irregular, uncontrollable thing now, running away with him into the fantasy he’s concocting, that his hand is the one to pleasure her, sliding into her slick folds and getting wet with her sweet juices. Hap could so easily reach down and do something about his painfully engorged cock, but even from within his illicit dream world, he knows he doesn’t deserve the relief. There’s a harshly divine suffering to the whole experience that drives him wild until an anguished, ecstatic groan escapes his lips right as Prairie makes herself come, hips jerking up, fingers gripping the sheet for dear life. 

Hap’s own sheets are sweat-dampened, and it is with a weak and shuddering motion that he manages to move the laptop over so that he can lie down and rest.

This time, he doesn’t close the computer. Unable to let her go, Hap stares at Prairie as she drifts off to sleep. He’s transfixed by her peaceful face and the rise and fall of her chest that somehow controls his own oxygen. Before he knows it, the sun sneaks in through the blinds and Hap realizes he hasn’t slept a wink.


	2. A battle of two

_Coffee, and lots of it. Oh! And you are never doing that again._

Hap can’t rationalize his insane lapse from the evening before and so resolves to pretend it never happened, just put it behind him.

_If Prairie ever knew…_

He sits down for breakfast, newspaper and bagel half in hands, radio blasting in the background, his back to the monitors, and _still_. He sees her. Now he understands how the captives feel. It’s excruciating and immense, the sensation that Hap has stumbled into a trap from which there is no escape. He makes himself chew and swallow, tries to see the words on the tablet screen or hear the suddenly annoying, pretentious babbling of the NPR host. It’s pointless.

 _How often does she do that, get off when the others are asleep? Doesn’t she think I might catch her someday? After all, don’t I always catch her?_

Hap growls in self-accusing frustration, then whips off his glasses and rubs his eyes. _What fresh hell is this?_

And he was going to forget about it.

That evening finds him back in bed with the computer, this time not even trying to lie to himself that he’ll stop doing this, knowing it’s his addiction now. And so it goes as several weeks go by, Hap somehow less and less aware that his daily routine has slowed to an unproductive crawl, just a waste of time until nighttime falls and he gets to live again. He forgets what sleep feels like outside of a few unintentional naps with his finger still lying on the trackpad to keep the image of Prairie on the screen. 

Most nights, there’s nothing but sleep to watch. That’s delightful enough in and of itself, a salve to his miserable soul, a relief to again confirm she has _someplace_ to find solace. In this consideration, Hap often thinks of the comfort Prairie finds in her conversations with Homer, increasingly hushed, intimate discussions that cause his chest to tighten as jealousy and rage bring on innumerable headaches. 

But every now and then, she’ll touch herself and her sighs will progress from fluttery to ragged along with his own. One time, he slides a finger down his burning, naked torso, imagining it’s Prairie stroking the line of his sweat until he has to force himself to stop. How much scarier would the intensity of his feelings become if he gave in?

Finally there comes a morning when, watching intently as Prairie winds her hair into a braid, Hap remembers that today is the day. He’s put off taking her for months, even killing the others each an extra time, too worried she’ll be able to take one look at his face and know what he’s been up to. But it’s equally suspicious to avoid her, especially when it only proves he’s become willing to put aside her status as “an asset,” thinking of her as the woman he loves. It is vital that he maintains the appearance of polite and professional interest in Prairie, nothing more…

She’s surprised when he arrives because it’s been so long, and in her exceptionally perceptive face as she registers the sound of the cell door opening, Hap thinks there’s a hint of something else aside from anxious dread that she’s about to be drowned again. Prairie looks involuntarily intrigued.

“Why has it been so long since you did this with me?” She asks with a distinctly investigative air that impresses him. 

“Just…come on,” he urges nervously, taking her gently by the arm to guide her forward. 

“Have you been putting it off?” Prairie inquires as if she knows the question to be rhetorical, and even though Hap knows she cannot see him as he straps her into the drowning apparatus, he feels very much penetrated by her look, by the frank and insightful tone in her voice.

 _She’s trying to throw you off, take advantage of your distraction…you can’t give into her._ Yes, the old mantra. It’s getting to feel like a damned inconvenience.

Hap stops short, telling himself he just needs to collect himself for a few moments before continuing, though the tube of gel stays put in his utility vest as those moments turn to minutes, Prairie waiting in suspended fascination. “I don’t want to talk,” he mumbles at last, and she tilts her head slightly to one side, arms still drawn up and fastened in place.

“Why not? Usually you never stop, unless we’re drugged. I bet you still keep talking even then, right? Rationalizing, bragging…but not today. You sound tired, Hap.”

“That sounds like some kind of a threat.”

“Right,” she laughs sharply, “A threat from the girl who’s strapped down. It just seems like you’re not yourself.”

Hap sighs. His whole body feels heavy, sleepiness tugging on his every nerve ending until the only thing enabling him to see straight is her presence…and even Prairie’s perplexed expression directly in front of him starts to blur, seems dreamlike. He loves her, so _why_ again is he doing this? Hurting her? Killing her? Weeks of sleep deprivation have put his id in charge, subduing his common sense and pride until he loses the will to fight back. 

“Uhhh…I can’t do this.” Hap shakes his head, almost wants to slap himself in the face to regain a stronger hold on consciousness. He undoes the straps and helps Prairie to step down from the platform and away from the apparatus he’s come to despise. Next comes the sudden understanding that instead of assisting Prairie to navigate the space, he’s leaning on _her._

“Hap,” Prairie murmurs, placing a hand on his forehead until he thinks he could collapse from the power of her touch on his skin. “What’s going on with you? You’re not feverish, but…”

 _Is she concerned for me? After all I’ve done, how…_

Hap knows he could die happy now and almost wishes he would. Maybe that’s what this is…the buildup to the final resolve. He’ll just seize up and hit the floor, crack his skull or fade into the grip of a heart attack. She might even kneel down and kiss his cheek before disappearing forever, as much out of his reach as she’s always been. The thought is so intoxicating that she has to reel him back in again.

“Have you been sleeping?” She steps forward, leading him gradually to the staircase, tugging him lightly until he follows like a hypnotized lackey. Cleverly, she uses her memory of the environment and her hand stretched out in front of her to figure out where to go.

He waits to answer, trying to force himself to make up excuses for his bizarre behavior. Soon they’re sitting down at his kitchen table like old friends and Prairie is pressing a cold glass of water into his palm. It seems to weigh a million pounds, but he takes a sip, shivering. Prairie listens, hears the pained gulp and the quiet shake of his body making the chair wobble just a bit. Her hand rises, almost reaches across the table, then simply falls prone to its wooden surface.

Focusing on her look of restrained interest, an interest he finds inscrutable, Hap finds that the words go flying out of his mouth before he could ever hope to stop them. “No. Well, I hardly sleep. Not for a while. And Prairie, I _saw_ you last night. I was watching.” The feeling of being unburdened battles with his horrified shame until he drops his face into his hands.

“You’ve… _been_ watching, haven’t you?” Prairie asks, her voice tight with immediate and fierce resentment. “That explains everything.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t used to be like this. If only I hadn’t started, it wouldn’t have been so hard to stop.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone here should be humiliated except for you. Why should I be embarrassed that I still have needs even though you’ve cut me off from almost all human interaction? Isn’t it bad enough that you have forced me into such isolation, without you getting off on watching me take whatever fleeing, pathetic pleasure I still can from these awful, lonely abysses you call ‘nights’?” Prairie presses her lips together until they whiten, her hand on the table turning into a fist which Hap is sure she’d love to slam into his jaw.

“I _am_ humiliated; I live in a continual state of utter mortification. That’s what it is to realize you’ve made a mess of your own life and ruined any chance you ever had at happiness, that’s what it is to choke off your guilt at the source until you’re something less than human. Until I started looking at you in your bed while I was lying in mine, and Prairie, I felt so much. I needed you so much, I need you…I _never_ …” How can he say this? Hap presses his hands into the tabletop, holding himself upright as best he can. “I never jerked off, watching you, even thinking about what I’d seen later…just know that I would never do that. I don’t deserve to, after everything I’ve done. I just wanted to see you.”

Hap thinks he might have made a mistake, bracing himself against the table. His head is definitely about to slam downward, so he should’ve had a hand under his chin to prevent this. Prairie looks shocked, cheeks turning pink at his words. 

“I think I’m going to faint,” he says matter-of-factly. Before he knows it, she’s at his side, helping him to take off his vest before she lays it across a chair and begins leading him again. She’s like a magnet pulling him. 

“Come on,” she murmurs, bringing him to his room, her hand patting the wall along the way. “Lie down.” It’s too easy, following her orders, too good. He sighs blissfully and nestles beneath the covers she’s lifted for him. 

“Was part of it…why you never…” Prairie is irresistibly curious. Hap squints up at her and smiles. “Did you ever wonder what I was thinking of when I touched myself?”

“All the time,” he sighs as his smile fades at the recollection. “But I had to stop that or I’d have gone mad. Knowing you must be thinking about Homer…had to block it out…just keep my eyes on you…” 

Prairie vanishes from his view as a black curtain descends over him. Sleep’s admittedly seductive vengeance has arrived.


	3. Captured by the enemy

When he wakes, disoriented and impossibly well-rested, Hap pulls himself up on his elbows and glances to the window. It’s night-time, blackness outside. 

_Prairie!_

His heart squeezes hard and he tries not to panic. She was loose in the house and could have left hours ago. Once outside…what if she tipped over the precipice? What if she found the other path that leads to town? 

“Prairie!” He calls in a hoarse voice.

“I’m here,” she says in dulcet tones, coming back in. Hap’s body relaxes. 

“You had every chance…what did you do? The others, what — just tell me, please.” She sits down at the edge of the bed, and he feels so exposed by the small twist of a smile on her face. Knowing. Pleased with herself. Enjoying his fear and its justification.

“I let them all go, you idiot. Hours ago. My guess is that they’re probably lying in a hospital somewhere, recuperating…eventually being questioned…giving their statements…” 

“Ughhh…” Hap groans, falling back against the pillow and pressing his fingers to his again throbbing temple. “You’re right. I _am_ an idiot. A doomed one, at that. It won’t be long before I’m locked up, and the work will never be finished, all because I cannot control myself when it comes to you.”

“Maybe. And thanks a lot for saying that bit about you and me like it’s a bad thing. Are you really so sure? Anyway, you’re not asking any of the important questions.” She raises her eyebrows critically.

Prairie has helped herself to a shower, and her damp hair is gathered in a loose bun atop her head, bound with a thick rubber band, the kind he keeps in his desk drawer. Instead of her worn dress she has on one of his grey t-shirts and a pair of his black lounge trousers, the clothing ridiculously baggy on her petite frame. Adorably baggy, actually. 

He wants to bite her neck.

_Questions. Right._

“Why are you still here?” He stares shamelessly as Prairie sits cross-legged. Her feet are bare. She looks cozy, like she belongs here in his space. After savoring his baffled defeat, she’s moved on, almost seeming to take a casual attitude to this turn in the conversation.

She has all the power, and he’s surprised how much he likes the feeling, finds his freedom in it. But that doesn't mean he won't want to turn the tables again.

“Exactly. Why am I still here?” She lifts her shoulders with a much more subtle smile. “I just wish I knew myself.” Chewing her lip, she goes on, “I guess I just wanted to ask _you_ something.”

Hap actually wishes that she could see the helpless devotion etched all over his face. He doesn’t feel like hiding it anymore. _I sucked at it, anyway._

Since there’s no one and nothing left but him and Prairie now, Hap asks intensely, “What?”

“What makes you so sure I was thinking about Homer?” Prairie blushes, looking down at her folded hands in her lap, and Hap thinks he must be dreaming.

“You—” _God, talking is so fucking overrated._ Hap climbs out of the covers and crawls down to the end of the bed where Prairie sits. Leaning in slowly, so that she has plenty of time to pull back if she so desires, he brushes his lips against hers. He barely has time to metabolize the cool, minty taste of her mouth, sweeping his tongue across her lower lip and discovering there’s still toothpaste stuck there, before Prairie grabs onto his face and kisses back aggressively.

Hap’s first instinct is to follow hers, but suddenly he’s never been so wide awake, less prone to thoughtless obedience. The hunter is back, the questioner. 

“Wait,” he mutters, pulling back slightly, taking Prairie by the shoulders as a flicker of annoyance crosses her face. _Aha._ He knew it.

“You’re not going to do that. You don’t get to do that with me, Prairie — treat this like it’s something to get over with, get out of your system. If this is happening, I’m going to insist that you are going to _feel_ it.” Hap unwinds her hair, tossing the rubber band away and driving his fingers into her wavy locks. Prairie quivers at the gesture, then looks away until Hap uses his grip around her hair to tilt her face to him; she lets him do this with no objection.

And that’s when he knows she can see him. 

His words, his refusal to quickly and usefully serve his last purpose by fucking away her inappropriate desire for him, they’ve opened up a wound deep inside her. Prairie stares at him, completely caught out in her intentions.

“When did you get your sight back?” He’s horrified, of course, knowing that she’s been able to see every single hint of adoration which he would otherwise have tried much harder to hide in his face all this time. Angry…hurt… _betrayed_ …the sternness comes back into his voice and Prairie’s breath skitters anxiously. “When you woke up. The day you tried to escape. Right?”

“Yes,” she answers, but the matter-of-factness which pride dictates her voice to contain is compromised both by her fear and need for him. In the end, it comes out in a weak, broken whisper.

Hap thinks he can see her thought process now. It’s as if she’s wondering… _what is he going to do to me? What do I want him to do?_

“Hmm,” he muses aloud, “It’s all been about power and control, hasn’t it, Prairie? Until it became more about desire…and deception. Only you never counted on _feeling_ the desire, enacting the deception on yourself to maintain your sense of dignity and righteousness…”

“You’re so fucking egotistical,” she mumbles uselessly, still fiddling with his shirt collar, broadcasting her yearning to keep touching him in some small way.

“Oh, and you’re _not?_ It’s so clear now — you had a plan, yes? About touching yourself at night, waiting for me to see?” He releases her hair and clasps her face in his big hand, his thumb rubbing down over her lips until they part. It’s only with vast effort that he restrains himself from that mouth to this extent.

“Yes,” she says again, distracted by his thumb and the temptation to suck it, looking up at his serious, accusatory, worshipful face. “I was thinking of you when I fucked myself in that cell because I hoped you’d see and it would drive you crazy. Tear you apart until you couldn’t think straight. Make you want to come to me and confess your deepest sins. And it worked. But I didn’t expect it to hit you quite so hard…you made it really easy for me, Hap.”

“Right. I did. But that’s over now. We both know why you stayed here after sending the others to safety, why _you_ chose to stay in danger. Are you willing to accept my terms?” 

_Please say yes._ The truth is, she can have him any time, any day of the week. Hap would simply much prefer that they were in this together, with the same level of emotional honesty.

“I want to know how much of this whole scheme was an act,” he adds, letting himself press just one brief kiss to her lips as she leans into him, “And what was _really_ going through your mind on those nights.”


	4. Come and get me

“This,” Prairie admits, taking his hand and placing it under the boxy t-shirt, right at the waistband of her pants so that it’s all too easy for him to dip his fingers beneath it, down between her legs and touch her, right where her hot nectar has dampened the fabric. Hap lets his fingers slip up and down at her entrance before inserting one, then applying the tiniest bit of pressure until she falls against him with a sharp moan, her head limp. Smiling, he pulls his finger back out.

“No, not yet. I’m going to take my time with you, Prairie.” Hap sucks her flavor from his finger, then slides his head down to nudge her mouth over to his, kissing her very slowly. He’s over the moon, reveling in her every minuscule nuance, wetting the dry lines where her mouth has become chapped but still so soft and full, sucking her lower lip and drawing it out when he finds the bite marks she’s left in her nervous plotting and hidden pining. 

He wraps his arms around her and goes on kissing her lips for several minutes, until his cock strains against his pants and Prairie whimpers like she’s about to burst into tears. The teasing is too much for both of them because of the surrender within it, the satiation of their longing to do just this and admit to the tenderness coloring their lust…

She pushes her body against him in a silent plea, and Hap rests his back against the pillows as she straddles him. He allows her to grind against him as he holds onto her hips, then skims her smooth, toned stomach, leaning in for a bite. “Maybe I was thinking about this, too,” she suggests, moving forward over his bulging arousal in the full knowledge that she’s gained an edge on him. 

“ _Maybe_?” Hap replies, irked, flipping them and pinning her body beneath him. Her neck is so lovely, he can’t help but to suck and nip at it, feeling her wrists struggling to evade his grasp as she wriggles around. “What?”

“Let me go so I can touch myself,” she demands, and he chuckles darkly, shaking his head. 

“So impatient, so hasty. I don’t think so, love. Not until you soak the sheets, not until there’s sweat beading your whole body and you fucking _beg_ me for relief.” He leaves a trail of delicate kisses on her neck, revisiting the spots he’s marked. “Can you feel that?” She nods and stops fidgeting.

“Open your eyes and look at me, Prairie.” She stares at him and gulps, undone by the collision of emotion between them. He guides one of her hands to his groin. She immediately cups his hard-on and he gasps, jerking against her touch as he says throatily, “Look at that.” Her gaze darts to the outline of his cock and she licks her lips, making him get still harder. He feels like he’s about to explode but the denial is nothing new to him and he knows he can hold out. It will be worth it. “You did that. You’re the only one who can do this to me.”

“Tell me,” he sighs, kissing across her clavicle, licking the beautiful curve of her bone, every inch of her so vulnerable beneath the thin veneer of skin and dignity. “Have you ever…” 

Dammit. There goes a whole segment of his armor. It’s difficult to ask her this, to pry so intimately despite the circumstances…the lengthy period of repression he’s endured has left some of the old reluctance to trespass in place. As always, he treats her with a special kind of respect. But she guesses his question.

“I’ve had sex, just a few times…I had a couple of boyfriends when I was younger but…I have never…it was never like this.” Quickly twisting his shirt buttons open, Prairie touches the skin above his heart and he loses himself to her more fully than ever. 

“I know it wasn’t,” he acknowledges, not in gloating, but in identification with her statement. Hap knows he’ll never feel this deeply for anyone else. 

“I don’t think you ever paid enough attention to this area when I watched your little acts of self-love,” he says by way of transition, kissing her hard nipples and cupping the soft rounds of her breasts through the t-shirt. 

“I was in a hurry,” she manages to answer, gasping at his increasingly wet onslaught, his tongue soaking the fabric until she yanks it up and he lowers his mouth to take one of her nipples in. 

“It was…ahhh… _God_ …I mean…I was in a hurry.”

“You said that,” Hap reminds her, pulling her shirt off altogether as she wraps her legs around his back. Too much clothing still between them…he’s going to lose it… “Fuck…I love you, Prairie…”

“Shut up and kiss me,” she demands. With a deliberately measured, gradual motion, he takes off her pants, squeezing her ass and then slapping it a few times, startling her as flames spread over her face to match the hand-marks he’s left behind on her bottom. His favorite part of this is how she lifts her hips to invite him to continue after the first spank. Considering himself suitably compensated for her most recent bout of sass, Hap decides to take her word as law and kisses his way down her chest and stomach until he can use several tentative nibbles at her upper thighs to make Prairie rake her fingers through his hair, whispering her request again much more politely, earning his approval. 

“Kiss me…” So deliciously pliable for him now.

_That counts as begging._

“Kiss me…” She keeps whispering it, melting away beneath him. Hap’s lips burn against her slit. “Kiss me…” His licks are soft and long, then short and firm. He holds Prairie’s shaking thighs as she tries and fails to catch her breath, her heels grinding into the mattress, toes squeezing the sheets.

Watching her make herself come has prepared Hap for the rhythm of her reactions, but now she’s completely unhinged, crying out so savagely that he growls in response, licking his lips before biting her shoulder harder than before.

“You’re a sloppy eater,” she observes, making him chortle into her mouth when they kiss again.

“Is that a complaint?” Hap knows she enjoyed that, there’s really no question based on her responses, but the truth is that he’s still playing catch-up. If you had asked him just yesterday if he thought this would ever be happening, the answer would have been a most dejected “no.”

“Mmm, more like a thank you,” she sighs, getting her breath back, resting a hand over her palpitating heart. "And that in all fairness, I think you won’t mind me doing this…” 

Hap knows he’s giving her puppy dog eyes as he allows her to turn him onto his back, but that’s okay somehow. 

_It’s okay that I’m obsessed with Prairie…_

Maybe just for this one night, but even so…he can breathe within that and take whatever doomed happiness lies therein. Her every move has him hooked, the power shifting back and forth between them with startling fluidity. 

Prairie undoes his belt and fumbles a bit with the button and zipper beneath it. She’s nervous and he loves it, has always loved her shy side. All at once, Hap doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold out, not when she pulls down his trousers and sinks her mouth over his thick, pulsing length. Letting out a shuddering groan, he grabs the back of her head possessively and begins drawing on the same strength that fueled his emotional repression and self-punishment up until this day, striving not to explode immediately. Still, it isn’t going to be enough, not for much longer—

With great effort, he gently urges her to draw back and says gruffly, “Come here.” There she goes again, trying to mount him, but Hap shakes his head and places her on her back, positioning his hard-on at her entrance and grasping her thighs tightly as he adds, “At some point, we may have to make a decision about who is going to be on top.”

“Says who?” She smirks dreamily, though the smile soon fades as her face tilts up, eyes fluttering shut again in anticipation of his next move.

“Do you want this?” Hap asks.

“You know I do,” Prairie moans with that exact combination of pathetic need and demanding aggravation that stokes the fire within him. 

“ _Say it_ , or I’ll stop,” he threatens, breath catching at the feeling of his cock stroking her juice-slicked slit, tormenting himself — again — just as much as Prairie.

She looks at him hard, lower lip wobbling with pride and a lust he desperately tries to interpret…what’s this really about, for her? There’s no denying the intensity, but does Prairie love him, or simply…

“I want you, Hap,” she sighs softly, adding to her request with a rub of her toes down his back that covers him in shivers. “Stop trying to control this or yourself…let go with me.” Placing her hand over his, she follows his stroking motion and feels as he guides himself inside her, but soon that same hand shoots up to grab onto his arm with all her might. The feeling of him inside her is a shocking new fullness, making her back arch, and as Hap lets loose a sharp, guttural moan at her exquisite tightness, Prairie absolutely _squeals._

“That’s the best sound I’ve ever heard in my life,” Hap says roughly, going on with teasingly tentative thrusts inside her until Prairie’s sounds get more insistent, higher-pitched…that does something to him, makes him snap. He pushes her knees into her chest and drives all the way in, very firmly. 

Prairie’s eyes grow enormous and her mouth falls open, astonished by the depth which this new position brings. “Hap,” she gasps as he slams into her, twice more, then on and on. The pleasure vibrates between them, sizzlingly strong as the sound of their bodies slapping together mixes with their cries, getting louder and louder. Hap pulls out and flips her over so fast she yelps in excited surprise, and then he lifts her by her hips until she’s on her hands and knees before him. 

He lets a few moments creep by as she wonders when he’ll slide back into her, and the way her breathing has turned into nothing more than a series of shrill anticipatory sighs just makes him more determined than ever to drive her completely insane. Taking a handful of her hair and tugging back lightly, he pushes two fingers inside her, then moves them back and forth slowly, asking, “Did you picture it like this, in your cell, with your fingers right…” Hap smiles, finding her clit. “Right here?”

“Never,” Prairie admits, clutching the sheets in a vain attempt to keep steady. “It was never this good…Hap, God, just fuck me again, please.”

“I bet you’d like that,” he muses roguishly, opting instead to keep rubbing her clit with his big, capable fingers, letting go of her hair so that he can use the other hand to smack her ass. Prairie yells out as her body jolts forward, the sweet friction of his fingers working inside her amplified by the spanking until she comes a second time. “Mmm,” Hap says, caressing her bottom with extra love while her arms tremble until he has to snake an arm around her and help her to get back into position.

He’s reached the end of his endurance, his cock screamingly rigid as he murmurs, “Ready for more?” She must be aching by now, but she nods with another tasty whimper.

“Yes,” Prairie requests almost meekly, and as he glides back into her, Hap knows it won’t be long now until he finds the much-craved release which he has forbidden himself from enjoying since the first moment he saw her. He pounds in and out, his fingers digging greedily into her hips as her head drops, mouth wide open in overwhelmed ecstasy. When he comes, Hap rests his face against her warm back, still pressed so deeply into her, groaning until he thinks he’ll lose his voice altogether. Regretful at the necessity of sliding back out, he’s consoled for the loss when Prairie flops over onto her back, reaching out for him and drawing him into a tight embrace. He kisses and strokes away the sweat-dampened hair sticking to her forehead and they just lie there, completely contented, probably for too long.

Long enough that the logic parts of their brains start computing reality once again, and Prairie’s eyes dart to the alarm clock on Hap’s bedside table. Still moving her hand slowly and soothingly over his strong, broad back, she says definitively, “We can’t stay here.”

“I know, I just wasn’t sure…Prairie, are you coming with me?” Hap stares into her face, from her stunning blue eyes to her flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips.

She gets up, walks over to his closet and opens it, pulling out one of his white button-down shirts and slipping it on, then grabbing the blue, velvety cord from his bathrobe on the back of the bedroom door. Belting the shirt until it looks like a very cute, if scandalously short, dress, she grabs a pair of his socks from his dresser drawer and nods at him. “Come on, get dressed. The police won’t take that long to find this place once the others give their statements.”

He stares as she yanks his socks up to her knees and flexes her toes, then stretches her arms, fingers clapping into her palms. “I can barely walk,” she laughs, pulling him forward and up by his arms, steering him to the closet. “Get a move on.”

In dumbly happy disbelief, he throws on slate grey trousers and a cobalt shirt, fastening only a few buttons before shoving his socks and shoes on. He takes Prairie’s hand and they hurriedly descend the stairs, several times having to catch each other before their almost sex-numbed, tingling limbs betray them into a stumble. 

Prairie lets out one of those reckless, pure giggles that light up his life and Hap pulls her against him when they get to the kitchen door. “Are we really leaving together?” 

“Uh-huh, silly, what did you think? Oh. Did I forget to mention?” She levels him with a heady gaze made of equal parts luscious innocence and dirty thirst, and smiles, serene despite the adrenaline rushing between them. 

Hap’s eyebrows knit together as he tries to guess her next words, falling for her all over again for being so beautifully complicated and thoroughly wonderful. 

She has saved him from himself, saved them all. He’s so glad the other captives are free, relieved to have ended this bleak and deeply regrettable phase of his life. Hap’s never been more completely ready to walk out into the light.

But nothing can prepare him for her shining grin and boldly emphatic statement.

“I love you, Hap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we started out with angst and ended on fluff...I thought the ending was gonna be darker but this is where the story led me. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Fic and chapter titles taken from the song "Hunters and the Wolves" by Delta Goodrem


End file.
